


Illumination

by keilson



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Schmoop, monochromatic life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keilson/pseuds/keilson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Foggy meets his very adorable, geeky new roommate, nothing changes.   </p><p>That's not true. When Foggy meets Matt, everything changes. It just doesn't include an understanding of red, or blue, or yellow. He still can't see a rainbow, he can't paint by numbers, and he'll never appreciate the supposed almost-red of his hair.  </p><p>(a reflection on life without color, bringing a new meaning to the phrase <i>love is blind</i>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Illumination

**Author's Note:**

> IT FIGURES, I have like five Matt/Foggy fics in the works and the only one I've managed to finish is a soulmate AU...THIS IS PURE SCHMOOP, SORRY, NOT SORRY.

There were so many books written that Foggy thought maybe already knew what it was like. He didn't seek it out, but when every bad teen novel referenced glowing sunsets or baby blue eyes, how the grass grew green and flowers became bright and beautiful, it was hard to avoid. Sometimes, he longed for it, an ache deep in his soul that may never be sated. Nobody in his family led him to believe it would happen; his parents loved each other, to be sure, but his dad saw the world in vivid hues and his mom had to ask quietly what color Foggy's hair was when he'd dyed it in a fit of rebellion. When he'd been young and hurtful, he'd flung it in his mom's face, how she clearly didn't love them enough, and how selfish she was to long for somebody else.

His dad had sat him down, cheek still hot and stinging from her palm, and told him about his biological father, the man his mom loved more than anybody, the man who'd died shortly before his birth. Foggy had felt well and truly like shit, because his dad was huge and loving and not his, but had still been there for him his whole life. His mom, he learned, had seen colors from childhood, when she'd met his father, and hadn't been with him when he'd died, but saw the world instantly washed with gray. Her soulmate, the love of her life, the reason for her colors, had left her monochrome and hurting, until his dad found her.

Foggy learned the hard way that day that color was never a promise, that beauty could be snatched away in a heartbeat. Soulmates weren't a guarantee, and love was hard work and dedication.

When he quietly tells Matt the story, years later, he's smiling.

\---

When Foggy meets his very adorable, geeky new roommate, nothing changes.

That's not true. When Foggy meets Matt, everything changes. It just doesn't include an understanding of red, or blue, or yellow. He still can't see a rainbow, he can't paint by numbers, and he'll never appreciate the supposed almost-red of his hair.

Foggy doesn't believe in love at first sight. He doesn't. He told himself that, growing up, but deep inside he, like every other person in this bland world, longed for that instant POP that brought his world to life, that let him know, yep, this guy's the one.

That doesn't stop the rush of disappointment every time he looked at Matt and felt that warmth pool low in his belly. Matt can't see anything at all; why should Foggy be so greedy?

\---

Sometimes Foggy wonders if his world didn't illuminate simply because Matt was blind. Matt would never see colors, so maybe Foggy, as probably his soulmate, couldn't either. He'd never read about it, but he didn't care enough to research.

(Colors can be dull or bright, they can come quickly or slowly fade to nothing, and many people will illuminate more than once in their life. There's no science behind it, really. The truth lies somewhere with the mysteries of a soul.)

(Foggy's a dirty, dirty liar)

\---

"It's almost like you're worried about the final," Matt teases him, cane snapping against his chair leg. Foggy has earbuds in, but he listens to them low, because he's seen Matt's flinch when he turns them too high. Foggy doesn't like large crowds of people; Matt's allowed to have weirdly sensitive hearing.

He scowls at Matt, flipping him off with his free hand. His cheek is resting on the other, and he'd been half-asleep, to be quite honest. Matt fluffs his hair, and if his fingers find purchase behind his ears, neither one of them will admit it.

"I could pass this final with my eyes closed, Matty," he mutters. Lie. It's probably the most boring, unnecessary undergrad class he will ever take, and he's dozed off through more than half of the lectures. He'll be fine, because he has very good luck and as long as he reads the whole fucking book before the test, he'll remember everything.

Assuming there is no actual problem solving involved.

(There is actually problem solving. Foggy gets a solid B, his first since freshman year of high school, and laughs it off over the most disgusting eel he's ever had.)

\---

At some point, Matt and Foggy leave undergrad and actually go to law school, and the world gets a little more real. Foggy gets a job, because his scholarship isn't enough, and Matt ends up with an internship that doesn't pay anything but will look amazing on his resume. When they're not working, sleeping, or in class, they're together. Studying, usually, but sometimes just walking through town and talking about saving the world.

The ache is still there, but it's tempered by Matt's hand on his elbow, fingers warm and strong. Foggy thinks maybe he's been illuminated already, and color looks like the crinkles by Matt's eyes.

He thinks he's happy, and together they can take on anything.

\---

He's not wrong. Years go by, literal years, in which they graduate, together, and get an honest-to-god internship, together, and then they fuck off and open shop, together. Always together, and Foggy's never felt his ache less than standing in his office, eating shitty pizza off a paper plate, laughing at Matt who's just managed to actually break his cheap card table masquerading as a desk. Karen's in a heap on the floor, head thrown back, shaking with giggles, and there are tears on her cheeks.

Foggy doesn't have to think he's happy; he doesn't think about it at all. He feels it in his bones, a deep contentment that settles in his belly and in his heart, so that even though he's drowning in student loans he still feels like the luckiest man in the world.

\---

Fisk happens.

\---

Foggy feels the aftermath of betrayal sharper than he ever imagined. He feels cold, all the time, has strange, swooping drops in the pit of his stomach when he looks at Matt and a stranger looks back.

What's the opposite of an illumination? His world is dark and muddled, unfamiliar. He dials his mom four times over the course of a month to ask if that's what it felt like, when his father died. He never makes it past the first ring, and when she calls him back he struggles through small talk. She never pushes, his mom, that strong, beautiful woman who had colors for her whole life, until him.

He's almost thirty now, and thinks he isn't ready for it to be taken from him. He's still never seen red, but he's seen Matt's sleepy smiles and sharp smirks. He's seen the care of a man who is so overridden with guilt he would destroy himself to save just one person.

In the end, the choice was his, because Matt never wanted to hurt him but he did it anyway, and he would stay distant for the rest of ever if Foggy let him.

\---

"What does a world on fire look like?" Foggy doesn't know if he's ready, doesn't know if the truth will ever stop hurting, but he's willing to try. Matt's tense like a guitar strung too tight, like he could snap with the wrong word.

When Matt turns to him, he catches the light, and his dark hair shines at the temples. Foggy thinks maybe black and white are simple, absence and presence of color, and the small sign of Matt's age is a shade, maybe, to match the wrinkles on his brow. Matt's voice is quiet.

"Change. Nothing is ever static, even in the rain." He looks wistful, a sad smile twisting his lips. "Even at its clearest, I only ever get an impression."

It's not much. It's a start. It's the biggest leap Matt's made.

He'll take it.

\---

Time passes, as time does. Matt does Daredevil stuff; Foggy finds out from the news the suit is red. He thinks on it a little more fondly, when Matt comes to the office bruised and the news tells him a kidnapped girl was returned home, safe.

He had accepted the devil meant well; he'd never expected to believe it.

"Soulmates are bullshit," he tells Karen, softly, over Thai in the office. Matt is gone (working his day job, not the night) and they're eating at the nice conference table Karen bought after Fisk. She still looks haunted and won't tell them why, and Foggy thinks they all keep too many secrets.

"I've seen color my whole life," Karen mutters to her noodles, and averts her eyes. Foggy waits for the jealousy to hit, and when it doesn't he smiles hesitantly. "I don't remember meeting them, honestly, but I've always had color." She returns his smile and ducks her head. "I didn't know the words for the colors until school, because neither of my parents had ever seen them."

She doesn't look ashamed. Foggy tells her about his mom, and she smiles wider, wet around the eyes.

"Soulmates are bullshit," she agrees, and it feels like a revelation.

\---

Foggy realizes he's in love when Matt opens his door in sweatpants and bed hair, crooked smile taking years off his face. There's no spectrum burst; he doesn't suddenly see red lips or hazel eyes (which Karen has described, in detail); there's no fireworks in his heart. Love comes to him like waking up in autumn, leaves on the ground and a chill in the air, and finding the year has passed you by.

His life has been Matt for over a decade, and he can't imagine anything else. When he steps forward, in the open door of Matt's apartment, and rests the hand not holding takeout on Matt's cheek, he feels his heart beat strong and steady in his throat.

Matt likely knew what he would do long before it happened; a light press of lips, Foggy's eyes shut tight. Later, they would talk. Later, Foggy would wax poetic and Matt would press kisses to his eyelids and feather-light touches to his jaw.

Now, Foggy wraps Matt in a bone-crushing hug and then shoves him inside, where they eat greasy dinner and Foggy tells Matt what his colors look like.


End file.
